Five named Family Research Scholars

Four campus faculty members and a Smith College professor have been selected by the Center for Research on Families (CRF) to participate in the Family Research Scholars Program during 2007-08. The scholars were chosen on the basis of their promising work in family-related research.

This year’s Family Research Scholars are:

Daniel Anderson, professor of Psychology, who studies children and television including children’s interactions during TV viewing and the impact on cognitive development and education. His current research concerns television and very young children, brain activation during media use, and television viewing and children’s diet. As a Family Research Scholar, Anderson will be developing a proposal to the National Institutes of Health to research the use and impact of television and videos on infants and toddlers. This work will build upon and extend to home observations the program of research that he has begun in a laboratory context.

Nancy Folbre, professor of Economics, focuses on the interface between feminist theory and political economy, with a particular interest in caring labor and other forms of non-market work. She has received a five-year fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation and also served as co-chair of the MacArthur Research Network on the Family and the Economy. She works with the Center for Popular Economics and is an associate editor of the journal Feminist Economics. Folbre has been actively engaged in the creation and development of the CRF as a steering committee member. As a Family Research Scholar, Folbre plans to pursue a large interdisciplinary research project to investigate ways of measuring and improving the quality of co-produced care services. The project would potentially involve several co-principal investigators or participants from other departments and seek support for doctoral and post-doctoral students from the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT).

Marsha Kline Pruett is the Maconda Brown O’Connor Professor at Smith College School for Social Work. Her research revolves around family issues specific to family and juvenile law. The unifying theme across the research is the promotion of healthy family development during life transitions, particularly those transitions related to adverse events or circumstances. In 2006, she joined Smith’s School for Social Work as the Maconda Brown O’Connor Professor. Previously, Kline Pruett was associate professor in the law and psychiatry division at the Yale University School of Medicine and the Yale Child Study Center. Kline Pruett’s project will focus on the effects of parental moves and relocation on the well-being of parents and children after divorce. She will pursue funding from both foundation and federal sources in collaboration with CRF. Kline Pruett is the first Family Research Scholar from another educational institution.

Dean E. Robinson, associate professor of Political Science, examines the effects of political and public policy trends on racial health disparities in the United States. His work focuses on patterns and policies that reinforce inequality of social welfare provision and socioeconomic status. In 2001, Robinson was honored with a two-year fellowship as a W.K. Kellogg Scholar in Health Disparities at Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Robinson will seek funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to design a study that will gauge the potential impact of state politics and policy on overall infant mortality, and black-white disparities. The working hypothesis is that features of the local political landscape, like state culture or ideology, party control of state government and various demographic characteristics affect state public policies which directly and indirectly affect infant mortality rates.

Lisa Wexler, assistant professor of Community Health Education, considers how health and disease are understood and enacted within a social and cultural context. Considering how different people identify, understand and address their “problems” can enable professionals to advocate for meaningful change as well as develop effective intervention projects. Wexler is particularly interested in learning how situated narratives, attitudes and beliefs of young people, their families and communities influence well-being. More specifically, her research aims to articulate the narrative identity constructions and associated roles that foster young people’s resilience within Alaskan Inupiat families and communities. Her previous work has focused on suicide and suicide prevention in Northwest Alaska. Through the Family Research Scholars Program, Wexler will develop a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) proposal for submission to the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. Wexler is the first faculty member from the School of Public Health and Health Sciences to be awarded a Family Research Scholarship.

The Center for Research on Families actively supports and disseminates social and behavioral sciences research on issues relevant to families. This focus includes research on individual health and development within families, processes and relationships within families, the social contexts of families, the intersection of family life with other social institutions, and social and economic policy that affects the development, productivity, time, health, and well-being of families and family members.

The goals of the Family Research Scholars Program are to support faculty in securing grant funding for family-related research and to build a multidisciplinary community of researchers studying issues of relevance to families. Family Research Scholars participate in a year-long interdisciplinary seminar which supports the scholars in conceptualizing, writing, and submitting their planned grant proposals.

More Information

Family Research Scholars Program

September 14, 2007.

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